Indian Strategic Thought

The Indian strategic thought was seen as starting from Kautilya which has been the much celebrated thinker but even in the Kautilya Arthsastra the aspect with regard to strategy and warfighting are discussed very later in the book. Therefore, it was felt that Kautilya and the different aspects that he had talked about governance, administration, qualities of the king, taxes and protection of the state were normal treatises. However, when one goes through the texts and compares it with the works of other strategic thinker such as Clausewitz, Sun Tzu and many others. There is are remarkable similarities in certain aspects. However, while thinker like Sun Tzu and Clausewitz did get their due in strategic discourses, Kautilya and the ancient Indian text did not get the due recognition. The problem can be attributed to lack of synergy and cooperation between international studies and political science scholars in India and the learned men who knew ancient Sanskrit texts.

The core attention to India strategic thought was drawn by Tanham who in his Rand study has elaborated that Indian lacks strategic thought. Given the fact that it was coming from a known scholar and an American think tank the conclusive debates were not promoted and also everyone subscribed to the thought of a vacuum in India’ strategic thinking. This project aims to decipher and understand Indian strategic thinking from ancient times to the present day. It also dispels the myth that Indian strategic thought was non-existent. The project is aimed to contextualise and understand ancient Indian texts related to the subject.